."

"But it has to be discussed. It has at any rate to be thought of. I
don't think that a woman has a right to take the matter into her own
hands, and say that as a certainty God Almighty has condemned her to
an early death. These things must be left to Providence, or Chance,
or Fate, as you may call it."

"But if she has her own convictions--?"

"She must not be left to her own convictions. It is just that. She
must not be allowed to sacrifice herself to a fantastic idea."

"You will never prevail with her," said his sister, taking him by the
arm, and looking up piteously into his face.

"I shall not prevail? Do you say that certainly I shall not prevail?"
She was still holding his arm, and still looking up into his face,
and now she answered him by slightly shaking her head. "Why should
you speak so positively?"

"She could say things to me which she could hardly say to you."

"What was it then?"

"She could say things to me which I can hardly repeat to you. Oh,
John, believe me,--believe me. It must be abandoned. Marion Fay will
never be your wife." He shook himself free from her hand, and frowned
sternly at her. "Do you think I would not have her for my sister, if
it were possible? Do you not believe that I too can love her? Who can
help loving her?"

He knew, of course, that as the shoe pinched him it could not pinch
her. What were any other love or any other sadness as compared to his
love or to his sadness? It was to him as though the sun were suddenly
taken out of his heaven, as though the light of day were destroyed
for ever from before his eyes,--or rather as though a threat were
being made that the sun should be taken from his heaven and the light
from his eyes,--a threat under which it might be necessary that he
should succumb. "Marion, Marion, Marion," he said to himself again
and again, walking up and down between the lodge and the hall door.
Whether well or ill, whether living or dying, she surely must be his!
"Marion!" And then he was ashamed of himself, as he felt rather than
heard that he had absolutely shouted her name aloud.

On the following day he was with the Quaker in London, walking up and
down Old Broad Street in front of the entrance leading up to Pogson
and Littlebird's. "My dear friend," said the Quaker, "I do not say
that it shall never be so. It is in the hands of the Almighty."
Hampstead shook his head impatiently. "You do not doubt the power of
the Almighty to watch over Hi